County: Dublin Site name: DRUMCONDRA
Sites and Monuments Record No.: DU018–015 Licence number: 09E0437
Author: Colm Moriarty, Margaret Gowen & Co. Ltd, 27 Merrion Square, Dublin 2.
Site type: Castle site and ring-ditch
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 716204m, N 737024m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.370621, -6.253765
An assessment was carried out at Drumcondra Castle and demesne in October 2009. The site, which is located off Grace Park Road, Dublin 9, currently houses St Joseph’s School for Children with Visual Impairment and as a result is occupied by a mix of buildings dating to various periods. The principal element of the demesne is an encastellated Regency villa, which incorporates the substantial remains of a 16th-century defended house, as well as sections of an 18th-century phase. Other elements of the surviving demesne include a gate-lodge, a late 19thcentury chapel and a graveyard, as well as a series of large Victorian institutional buildings. More modern buildings in the form of a primary school, workshops and resource centre are also represented. Due to the presence of these standing buildings, testing at the site was restricted to a series of large parkland areas located to the south and east of Drumcondra Castle.
A total of ten test-trenches were excavated at St Joseph’s as part of this assessment. These revealed that the large parkland area to the east of Drumcondra Castle contained a number of features related to post-medieval agricultural activities including field boundaries, land drains and furrows. It also contained what appeared to be the remains of a pond. The pond was backfilled in the 19th century and may be related to a large ornamental pond which is
illustrated on the first-and second-edition OS mapping for this general area. In contrast to the eastern parkland area the
parkland to the south of Drumcondra House contained a number of features of archaeological interest. These included the remains of a small ring-ditch in the central parkland area, which measured c. 2.5m in internal diameter and contained an east-facing entrance. Burial activity was noted in the form of cremated bone from the ditch fill. In addition to the ring-ditch a number of features were noted in the north-western part of the southern parkland area. These consisted of a series of large pits and ditches, some of which contained charcoal-rich deposits. Due to the depth of deposits encountered in the test-trenches, these features could not be properly investigated, although red brick was noted in a number of the cuts. It seems probable that these features are related to Drumcondra Castle and may represent associated rubbish pits, wells and property boundaries associated with this 16th-century castle and its subsequent development.
